Emergency Defense Matrix

Barda's eyes suddenly went wide. He stood up robotically and faced the direction the enemy was coming from. Seeing the approach of the men, he stood rooted to the spot, barely making any movement.

It had been a slow crawl, but they were finally there. Most of the patrols in the area had been shot down already, and the 50,000 strong men were coming into position. They were split into five legions, each legion consisting of 10,000 men. They had fully surrounded the camp, leaving no way of escape.

Leading the legion coming from the direction of Tristan was Commander Dana. After the fight at the fortress and her conduct before Barda's interference, she had been heavily commended. All her detractors had been silenced, and she stood proud.

Despite all that, she remained apprehensive about one loose end. The one thing she couldn't forget despite her considerable effort to try. Her successes paled in comparison to the fear that had been instilled in her.

Commander Dana was no weakling. She wouldn't shy away from the fear. She wanted to be there where he died, to plunge her spear into his body and confirm that he was dead. As any warrior did, they confronted their fear. However, she was smart enough to know she couldn't win in a one on one. The SOB was just too good.

After the fight, the forces by the Queen's side were considerably depleted. They estimated that no more than 5,000 survived, all told. To the minds of many commanders, this felt like overkill, but to Commander Dana, this was just about right. On that day, she would face him. Win or lose, she would be rid of the fear in her heart.

She had played a smart move, holding up the rear. After the ambush, logic dictated that the Tristanites would try to flee. The hottest zones would be at the front since that was where the strongest figures would be, opening up a path through the encirclement. Naturally, they wouldn't try to run towards Tristan, where the bulk of the forces were. Her work was mostly to ambush them as they tried to escape.

Here's where it gets tricky. The area where Barda was had been cleared by the scouts, so the main army was moving in. This was not due to the scouts being sloppy, but rather, the interference of the godlike watchers Krib and Arnea.

After Barda ingested the orb, the natural thing would have been that he would pass it out as stool. Nobody up till that point had been able to absorb a magical beast's essence by ingesting it. They just couldn't be processed that way.

At first, the duo had seen Barda try to absorb it with his hands and laughed. How daft of him to try and absorb a wyvern's essence without proper equipment. To their shock, he did it. Of cause, seeing the look of horror and pain had Krib rolling in laughter and Arnea sneering deeply. She had thought she would see something spectacular. She did appreciate his healing powers. His Magicka must be through the roof.

The sneer had returned instantly when he swallowed it. Suddenly, she had sensed a powerful overflow of Fire Elemental Magicka emanating from the fallen man. That was when the realization hit her, he was absorbing the d*mn thing. As she wondered how he had done it, she noticed that it was not going very well.

He was in agony, thrusting around. He commended his grit in not screaming like a little girl. Truthfully, Arnea had expected to see him succeed, but to her shock, he had died, just like that. How unceremoniously? Was this what it meant when they were told not to fly too close to the sun? He had been too over-ambitious which had cost him his life, a lesson she took to heart.

In death, she had appreciated the man for his capabilities, but she still needed to learn how he had done it. Which led to her dragging Krib down there to investigate. At the time, the patrol just happened to be passing by. Arnea was fast to react and masked the entire area. Not that they could have seen anything since Barda was, for all intents and purposes, well and truly dead. Furthermore, the 2 beings could not be seen with the naked eye.

Hence the scouts had cleared the area Barda was since everything was as it should be, Arnea made sure of that. After leaving, Arnea and Krib discovered that they had unwittingly spelled disaster. The only problem was, they were unclear on which side would have the calamity.

***

Commander Dana was dead center as she made her approach. This time, she was not at the back, but leading the approach. Their progress had been slow but it needed to be, They couldn't expose the attack, and it was already a miracle that information had not leaked already. However, even if it had leaked, it would have been too late for the princess to do anything. Dana still couldn't bring herself to think of that girl as queen.

"My lady, there seems to be a commotion in the west flank," an aide reported after receiving word from their subordinate.

"What's happening, have we ran into an unwitting patrol?" The commander asked.

"No My lady, it was a trap of some kind, the men are handling it,"

"Good, inform me once it's handled."

That should have been the end. There was no need for him to come with a confirmation since the commander had several things to worry about. However, after a few minutes, he returned with an agitated look on his face.

"Is it handled?" The commander took the initiative to engage the man.

"No My lady, it seems the earlier report was incorrect. It is not a trap but some sort of beast."

"Why is it not confirmed what kind of threat is it?"

"My Lady, anyone who goes to investigate never comes back."

"Where is this happening?"

"Western Flank, My Lady."

"Take me there."

Commander Dana wanted to see what kind of threat it was that was coming to her and her people, but before she could make it a hundred meters, she saw a multitude of her people running off in the opposite direction.

"Oh no, it has escaped containment!" The man had an agitated look on his face as he watched the warriors run off with fear in their eyes, but he could do nothing but follow, nay, lead his commander to their doom.

That was when she saw it. It seemed to be like some sort of moving flame, only it was humanoid and was moving fast. In a blink of an eye, 10 men had been struck down without any time to react. Problem was, it was drawing closer to them and they had no idea what it was, or how to stop it.

"Pull back!" The commander shouted to her men as she too began retreating, but the command had been given too late, and she was too close to the monster to get any breathing room. She looked at the flaming monster with trepidation and a hint of regret. She had come here to fight Tristanites, what fresh hell was this that had unleashed itself upon them?

***

The moment the Android System came back online, it's primary objective was safety and security, everything else came second. After identifying the overwhelming number of targets running at him, it realized it didn't have time to load its Personality Matrix yet. Barda was still just a machine, a very high tech machine.

Without a human on the driving seat, there was only one command the android system could come up with:

[Terminate all threats with extreme prejudice.]

Barda's normal fights were a thing of beauty. Orchestrated by skill and precision, Barda could dance around the enemy with mechanistic invincibility. However, none of them compared to the bare-knuckled Android Monster that had taken over his body for the time being.

No emotion. No hesitation as he hacked away hundreds and thousands of people. No elation for winning a fight, just moving on to the next target. Barda didn't register any emotion, good or bad.

What he did do was control the battlefield in that no one who saw him would live to tell the tale. Those running were not even aware as to why they were running, just had to get the hell out of there. Everyone else who allowed curiosity to get the better of them would end up fodder for his fists.

As Barda approached, the commander suddenly felt a blast of hot wind coming her way. She closed her eyes and awaited her inevitable death. She waited, and waited. The hot wind did not land, it seemed to have overshot her.

After almost 60 seconds had passed, which in such an environment was like a lifetime, the commander decided to open her eyes. When she did, she was so stunned she stumbled on the ground with shock.

Her most hated enemy, who also doubled down as her most feared nightmare stood over. All around her bodies of her men were littered like trash, many of whom were dismembered in certain parts.

How could she have known she was alive because of a notification that rang out in Barda's mind. [Facial Recognition hit a match. The recommended course of action: Apprehend target until Personality Matrix is loaded.]

As she stared at her captor's eyes, an overwhelming fear threatened to crush her heart. Meanwhile, a series of notifications were ringing in Barda's mind.

[Emergency Defense Matrix Deactivated]

[Initializing Host Personality Matrix Module, codename Barda King. Standby, this could take a while.]

[Host Personality Matrix Module initialized. CodeName Barda King running.]